A War of Flowers (2014) (30 page)

‘I’m sure he does. Unfortunately, the passions he provokes can prove more dangerous. It’s been known for girls to throw themselves at his car in the hope of being injured and
then comforted by him.’

Eva Braun’s pallid face came again into Clara’s mind. Once it might have seemed astonishing to her that women would risk physical injury for their leader, let alone their lives, yet
this man carried death around him wherever he went. Suddenly, the thought of where they were headed caused fear like a surge of nausea to catch in her throat and she wound down the window to gulp
the fresh air. It was as sharp as diamonds. The bright alpine sun made everything shimmer with iridescence.

‘The air’s extraordinary here, isn’t it?’ Brandt commented. ‘It’s to do with the salt deposits in the mountains, apparently. The Führer says it makes him
feel well again. Ah, here we are.’

They had come to a ten-foot, double layer of barbed wire surrounding a roped-off area of the mountainside. The car crunched over the gravel to a stone guardhouse where the guards stiffened to
attention. One ducked his head in and Clara and Brandt showed their identity cards. Further on she glimpsed more guards, patrolling with dogs.

‘Security here is second to none. A few years ago an SA man named Kraus was granted permission to present a petition personally to the Führer and he fired at him. He was killed by the
guards of course, and reprisals were taken immediately, but ordinary people can be just as much trouble. They like to collect the gravel on which the Führer has set foot and take home parcels
of it in muslin bags. It annoys the SS immensely.’

They passed a barracks and several parking lots until the road wound round and the house itself came into view.

The Berghof might once have been a charming country home, a white-faced chalet-style construction set into the slope of the hillside, yet now the simple mountain house had been extended to form
the hub of an entire Nazi complex, a gated community for the National Socialist élite. All villagers who had lived within sight of the house had been forcibly removed, and their chalets and
farmhouses transformed into luxury homes for Goering, Goebbels, Hess and Speer, or, if they were too humble, into barracks for soldiers. The entire compound was ringed with anti-aircraft guns and
deep underground bomb- and gas-proof bunkers had been built.

The entrance to the house itself was preceded by a steep flight of wide steps, the same steps that just a few days ago Neville Chamberlain himself had mounted.

For a moment, as Brandt pulled the Horch to a stop, Clara froze. Being here, in the jaws of the Third Reich, had never seemed so real or so intimidating. There was no escape here or refuge from
scrutiny. She wasn’t in the middle of a city, where she could turn tail and disappear, or in a film studio, surrounded by people who cared only for their work. She was not among friends, but
at the beating heart of the Nazi regime, with officers who were apt to look on strangers with particular scrutiny. The only person she could trust was Max Brandt, whom she knew she must not trust.
Fear moored her to the seat, turning her limbs weak and immovable. She wanted to beg Brandt to turn the car around and drive back fast the way they had come. Then two SS guards leapt forward, in
black jackets with swastika armbands attached, opened the doors and gave the Hitler salute. Brandt raised his right hand, turned to Clara and said softly,

‘Ready?’

‘I’m not sure.’

His expression was strange, unreadable.

‘Relax. You of all people know how to put on a good show.’ He led her up the steps, then another flight, and there, in front of them, was the most famous view in Germany.

Every citizen of the Reich was familiar with the vista from the terrace of the Berghof. Every cinema-goer had seen newsreel film of the Führer, strolling with Himmler or
Albert Speer, playing with the flaxen-haired children of his aides, sitting beneath a striped parasol with his loyal dog at his heels while beyond him lay the panoramic vista of the Untersberg
mountain with Salzburg Castle in the distance. Some way away was the Eagle’s Nest, the Kehlsteinhaus, commissioned by Bormann and formally presented to Hitler on his birthday that year.
Immediately beneath the terrace, meadows rolled into distant forest, above which soared the mountains, veined with snow like a garland of blossom at their peaks. In that mountain range across from
the Berghof Charlemagne was said to sleep, waiting to restore the glory of the German empire. This craggy romantic landscape could not be less like the military geography of Berlin, with its
squares of stone and steel and its ranks of marching soldiers. Yet in different ways they both expressed the indomitable ethic of the Nazi soul.

The terrace, which wrapped itself around three sides of the house, was furnished with cane sun loungers, white wooden chairs and tables. The pale stone shimmered in the sharp Alpine air, and
lounging against the wall on the far side was a group of men, some in SS uniform, others in field grey and a couple in suits, chatting to women over pre-lunch drinks. Two little girls in perfectly
smocked dresses and plaits like chunks of woven corn played with an Alsatian, hanging garlands of daisies around its neck as the dog patiently endured the little fingers digging into his fur. As
she watched the knot of people chatting and laughing, Clara’s only consolation was that all the women were wearing dirndls. What luck that in her blind panic that morning she had chosen the
dress with puffed sleeves and dirndl neckline to wear. And her silver necklace with the picture of her mother inside. Her clothing, at least, would not give her away.

Brandt strode confidently towards the group and clicked his heels before dipping his head to hand-kiss the female guests, and then gestured to Clara.

‘Fräulein Clara Vine, you may know, from the Ufa studios,’ he said, with a tone that implied that even if they had not heard of her, they should have. He introduced the entire
group, the men giving Clara a curt bow and clicking heels, the women a handshake. He ended with a buxom blonde.

‘And this is Frau Mimi Kubisch.’

Kubisch. Clara recognized the name immediately. She knew, as Brandt did, that this was Hitler’s first girlfriend, the one who had been Mimi Reiter, yet Clara also knew that this woman had
visited Hitler at his apartment just days ago and if Eva was to be believed had been told by Hitler that his relationship was ending. Like the others, Mimi wore rustic, Bavarian fashion, which on
her translated as a tip-tilted red hat, a puffed-sleeve blouse beneath a red bodice, thick white socks and brown lace-up brogues. She gave Clara a broad smile.

‘Have you been here before, Fräulein Vine?’

‘Only in the Ufa Tonwoche,’ said Clara lightly.

‘Then you’ll be longing to see around! Would you like a tour while the men talk?’

The Berghof might have been inspired by Hitler’s passion for Wagner, but there was nothing Wagnerian about the interior, unless Lohengrin had a penchant for flocked wallpaper or
Tannhäuser liked to relax in a chintz armchair. Everywhere stolid bourgeois taste prevailed, with fretted wood, fringed lampshades and slightly threadbare sofas piled high with embroidered
cushions. Mimi followed her gaze.

‘There must be fifty cushions with
Ich liebe Sie
and
Heil mein Führer!
stitched on them. He won’t throw a single one away. He says each gift is precious to him but
I say why can’t people think of something more original than
Heil mein Führer!
’

Mimi led the way through a vaulted corridor into a vast room, fit for a mediaeval banquet, with a gigantic window to one side giving a panoramic view of the mountains. It was grander here. The
walls were covered in Gobelin tapestries and the floor laid with red velvet and Persian carpets. Portraits of nude women hung over the fireplace and a gigantic eagle crouched over the bronze clock.
At one end a grand piano was clustered with silver-framed photographs of foreign royalty, including a shot of the Duchess of Windsor, smiling up at Hitler as he took her hand on the steps of the
Berghof the previous year. Like so much of Third Reich architecture, the main function of the room was not comfort or convenience, so much as making everyone feel small.

‘This entire place was rebuilt a couple of years ago. He’s terribly proud of it. All the swastika tiles on the floor are hand-painted and every evening that tapestry over there lifts
up to make way for the screen. They show films every evening; several, usually,’ she smiled merrily. ‘Nothing’s allowed to get in the way of the Führer’s screenings.
When Mr Chamberlain came here recently, the Führer cut the meeting short so he could watch an Ingrid Bergman movie!’

‘I heard he liked
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
.’

‘Liked it? He’s seen it ten times! He’s made it compulsory viewing for the SS because it shows how Britain gained her empire. And every night when the movie’s finished,
he gives his opinion to an adjutant who wires it over to the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin.’

‘That sounds amazingly efficient.’

‘It’s terribly important, the Führer says. He’s been watching a lot of American films recently – Tarzan, Mickey Mouse, Laurel and Hardy and so on, because he wants
to learn about American culture. He loved Laurel and Hardy. Gave them a standing ovation, actually. Oh, here they come . . .’

The door opened at the far end of the room and a group of men entered, deep in conversation. Their German was harsh and guttural and Clara was only able to catch the occasional word and phrase.
‘Rabble’ was one and ‘essential preparations’ was another.

Clara shivered.

‘Cold, isn’t it?’ said Mimi. ‘It’s always freezing here. He actually bought the house because it’s orientated to the north. He doesn’t like the sun, you
see, but it does mean the house is constantly in shadow and it always feels like winter. You need to bring a fur coat, even in the warmest weather.’

The group at the end of the room erupted in laughter and Clara nodded at them casually.

‘What are they talking about, do you suppose?’

Mimi shrugged. ‘What do you think? They say Adolf Hitler is the guest at every party. Even when he’s not here. Want to go back outside? I’m dying for a cigarette and no
one’s allowed to smoke anywhere indoors. You won’t find a single ashtray in this entire place, not even in the bedrooms. He has them inspected regularly to check.’

They lit up and leant over the balustrade. In the driveway below Clara could see a soldier polishing Brandt’s gleaming Horch, buffing its sleek lines as meticulously as if it had been one
of his own jackboots. Further on, the little girls were throwing the Alsatian’s ball into the flowerbeds and watching the animal trample the flowers while a guard, rifle slung over his
shoulder, tried ineffectually to prevent them.

‘What do you think of the view? It’s tremendous, isn’t it? You never get tired of a view like this.’

‘It’s breathtaking.’

‘We have Bormann to thank for it.’

She pointed behind her to a squat man with no neck and clothes that hung on him like flabby skin.

‘Bormann ravaged this place,’ said Mimi more softly. ‘Fifty houses were taken down, and a sanitarium. He burned down a farm to make way for a place big enough to accommodate
his ten children. It was pretty hard for the families who lived here. My own family knew a lot of them, but even if they’d been here for generations, Bormann wouldn’t let them stay.
Security reasons.’

She turned round and rested her elbows on the terrace ledge as she surveyed the group of men in the hall, pointing at them with the tip of her cigarette.

‘I don’t suppose you know many of these people. That one’s Julius Schaub, the Führer’s valet.’ She indicated a man with bulging eyes and a pronounced limp.
‘He limps because several of his toes were amputated for frostbite in the war.’

Clara had heard of Schaub. All the actresses knew him. He was in charge of visiting theatres and cabarets to hand-pick actresses and dancers for quiet evenings with Hitler.

‘And that’s Albert Bormann, Martin’s brother. And my husband Georg,’ she added, a trifle dismissively, pointing to a horse-faced man with broken veins spidering his
cheeks. ‘Herr Brandt of course you know.’

As Clara looked across, Brandt caught her eye and winked. He was a good actor. It was dreadful to think that this man, with his dark jokes and teasing smile, might be in Heydrich’s
pay.

At that moment the doors of the dining room were opened to reveal a phalanx of white-jacketed waiters carrying silver trays.

‘At last!’ Mimi exclaimed. ‘Lunch is here. I’m famished. Come on, sit next to me.’

They seated themselves around a long table set with white linen tablecloth, crystal glasses and solid gold cutlery engraved with the initials AH. Despite the lavishness of the table settings,
there was a distinct parsimony where alcohol came in. No cognac or champagne was in evidence – instead the men were served beer and the women made do with the Führer’s favourite
Fachinger mineral water.

The company applied themselves to their meal with relish but Clara had no appetite. The situation was so strange that she could scarcely believe it. She was at the Berghof and sitting at the
Führer’s dinner table, though thankfully without the host, whose seat at the end of the table had been left conspicuously empty.

‘Bad luck that he should be away on your first visit,’ said Mimi, following her gaze. ‘He may come later this evening. Are you staying tonight?’

‘No,’ said Clara, a little too quickly.

‘That’s a shame. But even if you did, you might miss him. He doesn’t normally get up till noon.’ Mimi leaned closer with a smile. ‘Even then, the servants always
have to let us know what mood he’s in. And there are some advantages to him not being here.’ She picked up her fork and turned towards the servant behind her bearing a tray of warm ham.
‘It means we can eat meat without it being called carrion. And we don’t have to listen to long descriptions of the insides of slaughterhouses. Ugh.’

‘What does the Führer like to eat then?’